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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24857062">In the Woods Somewhere</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fear_Fades_4Eva/pseuds/Fear_Fades_4Eva'>Fear_Fades_4Eva</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Like Real People Do [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Betrayal, Angst, Bathing/Washing, Biting, Blue Lions!Kagome, Byleth found early, Byleth still merged with Sothis, Canon Divergence, Cuddling, Female My Unit | Byleth, GD Professor!Byleth, Gore, Hallucinations, He will appear eventually, Jeralt lives, Kagome Crossovers, Kagome X-Overs, Mute Kagome, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Same as everyone else, Violence, blend of Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes, during Timeskip, mentally unstable, more tags to come with updates, on Kagome AND Dimitri's part</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:55:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,551</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24857062</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fear_Fades_4Eva/pseuds/Fear_Fades_4Eva</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Kagome survives the five years until the Millennium Festival.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Like Real People Do [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1798384</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. In the Woods Somewhere</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm still around and trying to work on fics but life right now, you know? Still haven't finished one route yet even though I've got 80+ hrs on it lol but this came to me out of nowhere in the middle of the night about a month ago. I'm going to try and see if I can do a consistent weekly update with what I've got and write more to keep that consistent update going (don't hold me to that, readers saw how that well that worked out with my Evil Within fic.)</p><p>Before/Backstory</p><p>Kagome is reborn in Fódlan. She's not of noble blood, does not have a Crest, and became a wandering orphan after her family was killed in the rebellion Dimitri and Felix fought in four years before they went to the Academy.<br/>Rhea took her in just like she did with Catherine, Shamir, and Cyril. She was simply a helping hand around the Monastery until she agreed to join Byleth's class at the same time Cyril was recruited.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the aftermath of Garreg Mach's fall, Kagome spends those first few days helping survivors, culling Imperial soldiers, and trying to make sense of what Edelgard has done. Not even a week passes before she's giving up on any thoughts concerning the once princess and now Emperor. </p><p>All she is able to focus on is the destruction the Empress leaves in the wake of her revolution.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>--</p>
</div><p>A harsh grunt passes her lips, dry and tired and angry, as she finishes off a tourniquet for one of the many Kingdom soldiers she has splayed out around her. The calluses building on her hands burn with every second of friction she puts them through. </p><p>Tired eyes fly up to another bed where another patient lies coughing and hacking into a bucket. She gives him some water and checks on the one next to him. This one is already passed out, more from exhaustion and dehydration than blood loss, is her guess. </p><p>She isn't sure.</p><p>It's been three nights, maybe, she can't recall, since her focus has sharpened long enough for her to actually process each injury. Letting instinct and muscle memory work where her own exhaustion and magic has dried up is much easier. </p><p>Her knees dig uncomfortably into an exposed root but she ignores it to staunch the bleeding in an abdominal wound.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>--</p>
</div><p>Another two weeks pass nearly the same way, only there are more dead and less injured, more rampaging fires from wild beasts and less raids from Imperial soldiers. Her magical reserves are still just dregs, certainly nothing she can use against monsters but her time at the Monastery taught her much. Her biggest obstacle now is time and it requires more strategy than if she had her friends at her back. </p><p>When those thoughts come to her, she pours what little leftover adrenaline she has into burying the dead.  Blisters burst and cuts tear back open, fingernails chipping and being torn up for every time she pushes that shovel into the ground. It doesn't stop the nightmares from plaguing her.</p><p>Or keep her from noticing that she has yet to catch sight of even one person from any of the houses. Knowing how many people fell that first day has left her with little hope of seeing them again.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>--</p>
</div><p>It continues like this until any villages near the monastery have been wiped clean of the living, the bodies slowly but surely buried, and a mountain of beasts scattered throughout to rot. The smell manages to deter anyone from getting too close and if not that then the sight of the mighty corpses makes up for it.</p><p>Black smoke finally stops rising from the Monastery.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>End.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. I pray my mind be good to me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Moments</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I HAVE NOT PROPERLY THOUGHT THROUGH WEEKLY UPDATES AND THE PASSAGE OF TIME! I WILL GET THIS DOWN AT SOME POINT</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center"><p><span class="u">I pray my mind be good to me</span></p>
<p>She sleeps.</p>
<p>The bodies are buried and there are no more wounded, no more people fleeing. No more soldiers charging in to kill anyone who was foolish enough to stick around. No more beasts coming in to feast on what’s leftover.</p>
<p>Freshly dug graves are full, dirt packed high on them. Homes and walls and buildings lay broken and burnt, rubble no longer crumbling off them to litter the scarred roads.</p>
<p>The silence sinks in.</p>
<p>The exhaustion seeps in.</p>
<p>At first, for hours and hours until she doesn’t even know if she was only out for a couple of hours or a day. She stops marking the calendar.</p>
<p>Then it's just nightmares. Blood and screaming mixes with laughter and tea parties. Faces blur together until the only one she can see is Edelgard's.</p>
<p>By the time snow starts falling, she doesn’t know how many moons have passed and her sleep has become choppy and sparing.</p>
<p>She no longer sleeps.</p>
<p></p><div class="center"><p>---</p></div>Kagome knows lonely and alone are two different things.<p>She doesn't know where the memories come from or what they mean but she knows there was a time when she was trapped in a dark place with cruel voices threatening to kill her if she didn't give in. That was alone even if it wasn't lonely.</p>
<p>Before Garreg Mach and after her family was taken from her, her days would pass in blurs at supermarkets or any job she could find. Yet, all she ever remembers feeling was being lonely. </p>
<p>After, it is all she can do to try and keep herself busy to avoid how painful and heavy being alone and lonely is. It does not stop the way her throat seems to tighten and weigh her voice down. </p>
<p>She wakes up to the sensation and falls asleep to it now. The few times she tries to make noise or even speak fail her and eventually, she starts to wonder why it ever scared her once. </p>
<p>Noise attracts the monsters and the monsters catch the attention of the soldiers. </p>
<p>And there is no one to talk to anymore, either.</p>
<p></p><div class="center"><p>End.</p></div></div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Take care where you wander</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The only reason this is probably getting out on time is because today is my day off but! I got one on time! hehehehe</p><p>If this chapter seems a little rushed, I literally just added it before the next piece I was actually going to put. Playing the game brought this little idea to mind. 140 hours gamplay and I'm just getting to where the time skip starts. But, hey, I have every possible person to recruit on my side now.</p><p>All chapter lengths will vary as well as how many scenes I post in each one.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <span class="u">Take Care Where You Wander</span>
  </p>
</div>There's a moment, after a fight with an Imperial patrol, a moment of weakness where she stumbles past the broken gates of the Monastery. Rain falls from the sky in thick torrents, pelts her until the cold under her skin burns hot.<p>Hair sticks to her face, covers her eyes and she knows it's too long. Dangerous. It makes her easy to grab, makes the soldiers laugh, makes them—</p><p>It's raining so hard she doesn't see the Pegasus until she's tripping over it. A nicker beats at her ear and she stumbles onto her knees to pet its muzzle. Only, nothing meets her hand.</p><p>There's no Pegasus, no horse, no animal at all when she blearily looks up.</p><p>She has to—</p><p>She's supposed to be—</p><p>Kagome gets to her feet slowly, knees quaking, and shuffles further onto the grounds.</p><p>Everything goes bright and dizzy each time she closes her eyes but she keeps going, keeps moving. Always.</p><p>Cobblestone grinds under her feet, her hands, the dust of it pressing into her cheek and mouth. Red catches her attention.</p><p>Carpet.</p><p>She knows this room. In passing and in study sessions that were so uncomfortable. Broadening horizons, burgeoning alliances, is what her Professors said.</p><p>What need did she have of these? She is not a noble, has no lands, no people to see to. No, no.</p><p>All her people are gone or dead and buried.</p><p>The chair crashes against the far wall, splintering and breaking across the bed. Books across the mantle, the desk, she shoves to the floor. Rips them apart until paper covers the floor. Tips the desk. Shatters the water pitcher, the vials, the cups.</p><p>So easy. So quick.</p><p>Her wounds burn as she picks up the bed frame, overturns it. Her wrist cracks.</p><p>Too quick. Too easy.</p><p>Hubert's room is too little, not enough. Not for the pain, for the graves. For all those who left her and the others as they bled.</p><p>Next door, she thinks. The room next door. She limps to it, gasps, and goes straight for the red scarf that sits on the bed.</p><p>Burns it until the threads tear and the fire licks at her own skin. Casts Bolganone until Edelgard's room is nothing but fire and destruction.</p><p>There are no screams, no one dying, just the crackles of burning wood and the beat of the rain overhead.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>End.</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If this chapter was confusing and for the sake of context, Kagome is half delirious with fever and pain in the middle of a rainstorm that leads her to the dorm rooms on the Monastery.</p><p>Just to re-clarify, should anyone need it, Kagome's power and her past have VERY little significance in this story. She gets flashes here and there and her powers will come when she's weakest, vulnerable physically and emotionally but it is not significant to the plot in any way.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. And the days blur into one</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Byleth floats in</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>And the days blur into one</p>
</div>On a sunny day, an unknown amount of time later, with the sky blanketed in blue and spots of soft cottony white, she is trying to salvage the spearhead of a broken lance she used to down a wolf beast. Splinters catch and dig into her palms, minor and easy to ignore, but a particularly large sliver cuts into her wrist. With a grimace, she gives up and hauls herself off the beasts' throat.<p>Wipes the excess flesh and blood in its fur to keep it from getting into the cut. It's easy, quick, to call the white glow to her hands and heal herself.</p>
<p>The blood that coats her begins to dry and congeal, dripping onto the forest floor, gathering in the worn and torn shoes she wears. It squelches unpleasantly between her toes.</p>
<p>A river runs just past the edge of the forest. </p>
<p>With the four mighty wolves she killed now out of the way and no other nearby threats, she makes her way there. </p>
<p>Her first steps into the water are bumbling, pebbles and debris underfoot taking her balance so she doesn't notice at first. It’s common to find the river carrying away clothing and corpses and debris of all sizes. </p>
<p>She scrubs the blood from her knuckles, slips her feet from the shoes. A strange green in her peripheral has her brows furrowing and she looks up, blinking slowly. </p>
<p>Once upon a time, the lace leggings or the coat, maybe even the mint green of her hair, would have roused her enough to catch on quicker. </p>
<p>Now, she simply stares blankly, hands mechanically rubbing at the blood that has dried on her neck and in the crook of her elbows. It's the scrape of a nail over an old scar - from a friendly spar between her and... and a scowling face with dark messy hair, she thinks dimly, unable to recall the person's name - that it clicks why it arrests her attention so. </p>
<p>A doe on the far bank startles at her frantic splashing.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>End.</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Note:</p><p>-This is going to be a combination of the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes with obvious Canon Divergence cuz I was stupid and started with this beautiful boi and now I can't stomach the idea of what happens to him in the other routes.</p><p>[Kagome's memories of her old life come and go in flashes]</p><p>Kagome's memories of her old life are not a major part of the story nor is the jewel or her powers. There will be mentions of them but until I get to a point in the story that they possibly become relevant, again, there will only be mentions of them.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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